]]>The new iPad Air will have much faster Wi-Fi than its predecessor, but not as fast as many had hoped. The new tablet doesn’t sport the new 802.11ac standard, even though Apple’s latest generation routers, PCs and laptops all support it. While Apple’s decision to eschew the standard in this round of mobile devices isn’t surprising, it will definitely delay the broader industry’s adoption of the new Wi-Fi technology.

What Apple is providing is a speed boost to the now thoroughly established 802.11n networking standard in the form of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) smart antenna technology. Like many Wi-Fi routers on the market the iPad Air has dual antennas, allowing it to wend two parallel paths over the unlicensed airwaves. The MIMO implementation will double the speeds at which the iPad can access Wi-Fi networks, according to Apple.

While there probably a lot of people disappointed that Apple didn’t offer the 802.11ac upgrade in this round of iPads — especially those who just bought a new Apple Airport Extreme Router — there was only a slim chance that Apple would support the technology anyway. When it comes to mobile devices, Apple has always been conservative with new standards — we’ve seen it with Bluetooth, 3G and LTE — preferring to let new technologies mature before embracing them.

The Wi-Fi Alliance only began certifying commercial 802.11ac devices in June, and even those devices only incorporate partial versions of the full 802.11ac spec. The IEEE isn’t expected to fully finalize the standard until 2014. Very few smartphones and tablets have ac embedded as of yet, though the technology is making its way into consumer and enterprise routers and PCs, including Apple’s newest MacBooks and iMacs.

But waiting another year for 802.11ac-enabled iPhones and iPads also means we’ll probably have to wait another year before we see widescale adoption of the standard in public hotspots and access points. Unlike in the home, most outdoor and public Wi-Fi connections are made over mobile devices, not PCs.

In a recent interview, Boingo VP of corporate communications Christian Gunning said it hasn’t turned up 802.11ac in any of its hundreds of thousands of owned and managed hotspots yet, simply because it’s seeing very few devices with ac radios trying to access its network.

]]>When Apple built the iPhone 5, it was forced to give up its single device strategy and build different versions of the iPhone for different regions and different carriers. The reason was the enormous fragmentation in LTE bands — every carrier seems to be using a different 4G frequency — and there’s no way standard antenna rigs in phones can support every single one of them.

It’s a problem that doesn’t just plague Apple but also every handset vendor looking to support multiple LTE frequencies in addition to the usual complement of 2G and 3G bands. Smart antenna maker SkyCross, however has started shipping a new super antenna that can tune to as many 12 frequencies. Given that there are about 40 identified LTE frequencies, SkyCross’s new VersiTune-LTE antenna won’t produce the universal 4G phone, but it will get handset makers a lot closer, said John Marshall, VP of business development and marketing.

“You could use it, for instance, to create a single phone that could work on every North American LTE networks,” Marshall said. That’s no small feat. North America is the most fragmented region of the all. AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile and Clearwire are all launching their networks on different frequency bands, and as they start expanding their 4G networks into supplemental spectrum that mishmash of bands is going to become even more complex.

SkyCross is utilizing a design that it has developed called isolated Mode Antenna Technology (iMAT). By accessing different “feedpoints” on the structure, iMAT antennas can not only tune themselves to different frequency, but also can function as multiple antennas that can simultaneously receive different signals. That’s important because increasingly complex LTE and LTE-Advanced technologies require multiple radio links to the network.

To build fatter wireless pipes, operators are using a technique called carrier aggregation, which in essence bonds together two blocks of spectrum in disparate bands. For instance, Verizon plans to glue 2100 MHz frequencies onto its current network, which residing way down in the 700 MHz band. To accomplish that, the phone will have to tap into both bands simultaneously. Marshall said the VersiTune will be the first antenna specifically designed for LTE-Advanced carrier aggregation.

SkyCross plans to officially unveil the new design next week at CES, and the antenna will start making it into phones this year. Ultimately these kind of active antennas could help Apple move back to a single iPhone manufacturing model — or at least minimize the number of different iPhones it must make. Apple, though, isn’t a customer, though Marshall said he’s working on that. SkyCross already works with some of the biggest handset makers in the world, including the dominant Samsung, but it does face competition from other active antenna makers like Ethertronics and WiSpry.